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And The Winner Is, Germany!

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | June 29, 2022

Just over six months ago, in December 2021, I asked the question that was on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject of the ongoing massive “green” transition to fossil-fuel-free energy. Actually, that’s a lie. The question I asked was not on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject, or even of most of the people who follow the subject, for reasons that to me are completely inexplicable. The question was : “Which Country Or U.S. State Will Be The First To Hit The Green Energy Wall?”

The candidates that I nominated in that post as potentially the first to hit the “green energy wall” were California, New York, the UK and Germany. At the time, I thought it was obvious that one of those jurisdictions would hit the wall sooner than almost anybody expected. Indeed, I was quite bold in the short time frame that I predicted:

A prolonged period of unfavorable weather (calm and overcast) could cause a serious energy crunch to hit one or both of Germany or the UK as soon as this winter. Or they could get lucky and go another year or two.

Now here we are in June 2022, and I think it’s hard to deny that Germany has in fact hit the “green energy wall.” Let’s consider.

First, here is the definition of the “green energy wall” that I gave in the post:

[O]ne or another of [those states or countries] is highly likely to hit a “wall” — that is, a situation where the electricity system stops functioning, or the price goes through the roof, or both, forcing a drastic alteration or even abandonment of the whole scheme.

And here’s the reason I gave why one or another (or all) of the nominated jurisdictions would soon be hitting the “wall”:

All these places, despite their wealth and seeming sophistication, are embarking on their ambitious plans without ever having conducted any kind of detailed engineering study of how their new proposed energy systems will work or how much they will cost. Sure, a wind/solar electric grid can function with 100% natural gas backup, if you’re willing to have the ratepayers foot the bill for two overlapping and redundant generation systems when you could have had just one. But “net zero” emissions means no more fossil fuel backup. What’s the plan to keep the grid operating 24/7 when the coal and natural gas are gone?

As is (or should be) obvious to everyone, a predominantly wind/solar electricity generation system needs full backup from some source to keep the lights on 24/7. The options are few: fossil fuels plants (coal, oil or natural gas), nuclear, or storage (i.e., batteries). Germany has ruled out the fossil fuel and nuclear options. It never had much in the way of oil-fired electricity generation, and it spent the last ten-plus years phasing out its coal and nuclear plants. So, that leaves storage. Surely, you might think, having embarked on a multi-trillion dollar transition to a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, and having ruled out both fossil fuels and nuclear for backup, Germany must have been focused like a laser beam on the storage issues to make the whole thing work.

You would be wrong. It is truly unbelievable the extent to which Germany — seemingly the country with the most sophisticated engineering in the world — put its head in the sand and ignored the storage problem until it just ran its energy system into the wall.

Let’s compare how much energy storage Germany would need to back up its wind/solar electricity system to the amount of storage actually developed to date or in the pipeline. At this website, I have followed the energy storage question closely, and have discussed and linked to the most competent calculations of how much storage would be needed to back up a predominantly or fully wind/solar electricity system for various jurisdictions, including Germany. In this post in November 2018 I linked to and extensively discussed work by a man named Roger Andrews, who calculated the storage requirement for Germany to back up a fully wind/solar system as approximately 25,000 GWH. In that post, I also examined some reasons why Andrews’s calculation might be low — for example, Andrews assumed a 100% return from energy put into storage (which is unrealistic), and also based his calculations on actual generation and weather data for a particular year (2016), which could prove more favorable than another year. But that said, Andrews’s calculation appeared to me to be in the right ballpark. More recently, in a post in March 2022, I discussed and linked to work of two German scientists named Oliver Ruhnau and Staffan Qvist. Ruhnau and Qvist calculated a storage requirement for Germany to back up a fully wind/solar system as 56,000 GWH.

If you figure that Andrews may be on the low side, and Ruhnau/Qvist on the high side, that would put a good rough estimate of Germany’s need for grid-scale energy storage to back up a wind/solar system somewhere in the range of about 40,000 – 50,000 GWH.

So how much storage does Germany have currently existing or in the pipeline? Here is an April 11, 2022 piece from consultancy Wood Mackenzie reporting excitedly about Europe’s plans to solve the wind/solar intermittency problem with storage, “Europe’s grid-scale energy storage capacity will expand 20-fold by 2031.”:

Europe has set out some of the world’s most ambitious decarbonisation targets. And the pace of change is accelerating. . . . [T]he region’s nascent grid-scale energy storage segment is growing fast. We forecast that total capacity will expand 20-fold between now and 2031.

Here’s their chart showing what that “20-fold expansion” will mean by 2031:

For Germany, this enormous expansion will supposedly mean all of 8.81 GWH of grid-scale energy storage. Is there a decimal place error here? Unfortunately no. Against a requirement of 45,000 GWH +/- of grid-scale storage, they’re not planning on 9000 GWH, or even 900 GWH or 90 GWH, but 9. They’re off by a factor of around 5000 against what they would need.

In other words, they haven’t even begun to solve the storage problem that would need to be solved to make their wind/solar system work, and they will barely if at all have begun to solve it by 2031. Indeed, the problem may not be solvable at all, and as yet they haven’t really put any meaningful effort into trying to figure that out. The result, as we all know, is that they left themselves completely dependent on natural gas from Russia. Now the Russian gas is effectively unavailable, and other potential sources have seen insufficient supply and massive price spikes. Here are a few observations on Germany’s current energy predicament. From Walter Russell Mead in the Wall Street Journal, June 27, “End of the German Idyll”:

As recently as 2020, almost the entire world agreed with the smug German self-assessment that Germany had the world’s most successful economic model, [and] was embarking on the most ambitious—and largely successful—climate initiative in the world. . . . [Now we understand that] German energy policy is a chaotic mess, a shining example to the rest of the world of what not to do. . . . Green energy, despite massive German investment, will be unable to supply German industry with reliable and cheap power for a long time.

From Energy Intelligence Group, June 28, “King Coal Makes Comeback in Europe”:

[German] officials are working on emergency laws that would allow roughly 9-10 gigawatts of idle coal and lignite capacity to return to service until 2024, replacing some of the 16% market share now held by gas. The country is home to seven of the EU’s 10 most polluting power stations, according to NGO Ember. . . . Economy Minister Robert Habeck said laws allowing more coal use and less gas-fired generation should pass the Bundesrat — upper house of parliament — in early July. . . . The government says there are no plans to change the coal phase-out date, with the last units still earmarked for closure by 2030.

It’s a complete reversal of the prior policy of shutting down the coal plants. Economy Minister Habeck says that the reversal is temporary, and that they are still on track to close all the coal plants by 2030. And how exactly are they going to accomplish that, with all of 9 GWH of grid-scale energy storage? There is only one possible method, which is to go back to natural gas, either using alternative suppliers (U.S.?), or because Russia re-enters the good graces of the world. But using natural gas for backup is just as much a complete abandonment of the “net zero” fantasy as is using coal.

So I say that Germany has in fact hit the “green energy wall,” and will not be going back, no matter what they are saying at the moment. Time could prove me wrong, but I don’t see any realistic plans that they have in the works to do away with, or even meaningfully reduce, full fossil fuel backup of their wind and solar generators.

July 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Omicron BA.5 Prefers Hypervaccinated Masking West Germans, Avoids the Former DDR

Vaccine failure in one map

eugyppius | June 28, 2022

Behold the latest map of 7-day Corona incidence across the Federal Republic of Germany:

This is the Omicron BA.5 wave in central Europe, and it is attended by a curious phenomenon: Every day, you can see more clearly the borders of the old DDR in the district-level data. I’ve traced these in green just to make the phenomenon clearer.

Yes yes, there are systematic demographic differences between East and West Germans, and there are probably some differences in testing rates, but above all, there is an important difference in vaccine uptake. In this map of triple vaccination rates across my country, the old DDR borders are also evident:

East Germans have direct experience with government propaganda, and have proven more resistent to the vaccination campaign than Westerners. Their reward, after being much maligned by state media, is now higher levels of natural immunity and lower rates of BA.5 infection, which appears to prefer vaccinated populations.

As the effects of vaccine failure grow clearer, you have to wonder how long the pandemicists will be able to publish even simple infection statistics, without raising extremely awkward questions.

See the follow up in depth critique of the theory.

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

German journalist in Donbass could face prison at home

Samizdat | June 29, 2022

Alina Lipp, an independent German journalist and blogger is facing a criminal probe at home over her “endorsement” of Russia’s “illegal aggressive war” against Ukraine. Lipp has told Russian media she only does what any journalist would do – document what is happening around her.

If found guilty, she could face a fine or up to three years behind bars.

On Saturday, RT DE interviewed Lipp about her professional work and the ongoing investigation.

The journalist contended that she is “doing interviews with people in Donetsk and merely translating them into German.”

“I am simply filming everything I see around,” Lipp added.

She inquired rhetorically “what is it that’s illegal in that, or dangerous?” The journalist insisted that none of her materials had been staged, and that there is no one telling her what to cover.

Lipp dismissed the German authorities’ investigation as “completely insane.”

When asked by the RT DE journalist whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was secretly commissioning her reports from Donbass, Lipp replied in the negative, adding jokingly “still not.”

The woman also lamented that a number of conspiracy theories have been spread about her.

One of those, according to Lipp, dates back to November 2021, when she sold three of her minute-long videos to “some Russian TV channel” that did not have its own correspondent on the ground. Lipp insisted that this was common practice among independent journalists who “sell their material to various buyers.”

This alone does not automatically prove that such a person takes orders from someone or “works for a Russian propaganda channel,” Lipp argued.

According to the German news website t-online, Germany’s law enforcement believes Lipp has been “constantly showing her solidarity with Russia’s war against Ukraine,” as well as fomenting a split in German society.

Her reporting was described by the authorities as “distorted, partially false.” She is also accused of spreading other outlets’ “completely fabricated” stories.

The probe was originally launched by the German public prosecutor’s office in Luneburg following multiple complaints, which have been filed since February. However, the prosecutor’s office in Gottingen, which specializes in internet hate crimes, has reportedly since taken over Lipp’s case.

According to t-online, Lipp, who was born to a German mother and a Russian father, has been living in Donetsk and Crimea since last fall. She runs a German-language news blog called ‘News from Russia,’ as well as a Telegram channel with over 174,000 followers and a video channel on PeerTube.

Since the start of the investigation, Germany’s DKV-Bank has seized the donations Lipp has received, with €1,600 ($1,679) said to be frozen from her account, according to t-online.

PayPal, too, has blocked her account, as well as that of her father, Lipp revealed in one of her earlier interviews.

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Hypocrisies and successes at UN meeting to ban nuclear weapons 

By John LaForge | PeaceVoice | June 24, 2022

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been ratified by 65 governments, known in diplomatic circles as States Parties. The treaty’s first Meeting of States Parties (1MSP) concluded here June 23, after painstakingly working out — in the words of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons — “a blueprint for the end of nuclear weapons.” The New Treaty is the extraordinary, crowning achievement of ICAN, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts.

At 1MSP, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany — all three of whom use U.S. nuclear weapons on their air force bases — participated as Observer States. The three have not ratified the TPNW, having acquiesced with a string of U.S. administrations — Obama’s, Trump’s, and Biden’s — that conspired at every opportunity to derail, prevent, delay, weaken, and boycott the new ban — in spite of Broad Public Support For Nuclear Disarmament. Mr. Trump demanded that States Parties withdraw their ratifications. None did. Biden’s White House reportedly urged Japan not to attend the 1MSP as an Observer, and they stayed away.

German and Dutch representatives took their turn and spoke to the MSP on June 22, but both NATO members used exactly the same words to note their government’s explicit disapproval of the TPNW, and to voice their supposed support for the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Both representatives said their governments “will not accede to” the nuclear ban treaty “because the TPNW is inconsistent with NATO doctrine.”

The hypocrisy in German and Dutch opposition is that their “sharing” of U.S. nuclear weapons, while consistent with “NATO doctrine” is totally inconsistent with their hallowed Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In fact, their 50-year-long dismissal of the NPT’s binding (Art. VI) obligation to begin negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament “at an early date” is also completely inconsistent with their feigned support for the NPT.

As German Representative Rüdiger Bohn said June 22, NATO “doctrine” includes the doleful edict, “As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear Alliance.” This embrace of genocidal atomic violence is not an Article of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Or NATO Charter. It was manufactured entirely by its nuclear-armed members, and there is no legal obligation for NATO to remain a nuclear-armed terrorist organization.

NATO “doctrine” is fluid, strictly advisory, and accepted voluntarily by its members. Even the NATO Charter’s famous Article 5, regarding collective response to a military attack on a member state, declares only that the NATO membership “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking … such action as it deems necessary.”

In comparison, the Non-Proliferation Treaty is binding international law and includes explicit, unambiguous prohibitions and clear, binding obligations. NATO’s ongoing planning, preparations and ever-present threat to launch nuclear attacks (known as “deterrence”), is simply a ritualized practice which can be ended at any time — say by complying with the NPT’s Articles I and II which prohibit any transfer or reception of nuclear weapons between states, or its Article VI pledge to negotiate nuclear disarmament. Indeed, it is the 50-year-long postponement, or rejection of Art. VI that has prompted and propelled the overwhelming success of the new TPNW.

What might have been a week-long celebration of the TPNW’s progress in seeking a world free of nuclear threats, was dimmed by Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine. It was the war’s spoken and unspoken reminders of ready nuclear arsenals in Russia and NATO that moved the MSP to say, in its Final Declaration, that it “condemn[s] unequivocally any and all nuclear threats, whether they be explicit or implicit and irrespective of the circumstances.”

The Declaration castigates nuclear weapons and echoes Daniel Ellsberg’s 1959 Essay “The Threat and Practice of Blackmail,” noting that the Bomb is used to coerce, intimidate, plague, curse, and terrify. “This highlights, now more than ever, the fallacy of nuclear deterrence doctrines, which are based and rely on the threat of the actual use of nuclear weapons and, hence, the risks of the destruction of countless lives, of societies, of nations, and of inflicting global catastrophic consequences.”

The Parties agreed to push ahead with resolve to eventually see the nuclear weapons states sign on, saying “In the face of the catastrophic risks posed by nuclear weapons and in the interest of the very survival of humanity, we cannot do otherwise.”

____________________

John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and is co-editor with Arianne Peterson of Nuclear Heartland, Revised: A Guide to the 450 Land-Based Missiles of the United States.

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Canada working to return Russian gas turbines’

Samizdat | June 22, 2022

Ottawa is exploring ways to return crucial parts for Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline, which are currently stuck in Canada due to sanctions, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday citing Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson.

“We want to respect the sanctions because the sanctions were put into place for a reason. That being said, the intent of the sanctions was never to cause significant pain to Germany, which is one of our closest friends and allies. So, we are very seized with this issue,” Wilkinson told the news outlet.

“We are talking to Germany, trying to find a pathway through which we can actually enable the flow of gas. There may be different options that we can look at,” he stated, adding that Ottawa is negotiating with Berlin on ways to return the equipment.

Russia’s energy supplier Gazprom was forced to slash natural gas flows to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline by 60% last week, because Siemens turbines from Gazprom’s Portovaya pumping station in Vyborg were stuck in Montreal, where they were sent to undergo maintenance. The parts fall under Canada’s sanctions against Russia, and the country says it cannot return them without breaching these restrictions.

According to the German Federal Grid Agency, the reduction in gas flow affected the supply of Russian gas from Germany to other European countries, including France, Austria and the Czech Republic.

The situation prompted these and other EU countries to announce emergency measures this week aimed at reducing the use of natural gas. Some countries have claimed that the reduction of gas flows was a political decision made by Moscow to increase pressure on Europe. Gazprom says the issue is technical.

June 22, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Blogger is investigated for her alleged support of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine

Samizdat | June 18, 2022

A blogger with tens of thousands of subscribers has said she is being probed in Germany over her coverage of the Ukraine conflict. German media confirmed the activist is the subject of an investigation by a local prosecutor’s office.

In an interview aired on Friday on Russia’s Channel One, Alina Lipp said she was being “persecuted” in particular for a post from February 24, the day when Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine. Back then she wrote that “denazification” had started, while also accusing Ukraine of killing civilians for years.

“Secondly, I am being prosecuted for the fact that on March 12 I published a video on my Telegram channel where I said that Ukraine is carrying out genocide in the Donbass,” Lipp revealed.

According to the German news website t-online, law enforcement suspects Lipp of “constantly showing her solidarity with Russia’s war against Ukraine,” of fomenting a split in German society and of spreading hatred through “distorted, partially false” reporting.

The case was initially opened by the German public prosecutor’s office in Lueneburg following multiple complaints since February, t-online reports, citing the body’s spokesperson. Later it is reported to have been handed over to the prosecutor’s office in Goettingen, which is the central office for the investigation of internet hate crimes.

Lipp, who currently lives in Russia and has done several reports from Donbass, was born to a German mother and a Russian father. She runs a German-language news blog called ‘News from Russia.’ She also has a Telegram channel with over 174,000 followers and a small video channel on PeerTube. It is unclear if the blogger has faced any charges in Germany. However, a local bank, DKV-Bank, has seized the financial assets that she has received as donations, according to t-online, with €1,600 ($1,679) said to be frozen from her account.

Lipp has branded the probe against her a “partisan judiciary” and has said that she is being punished for violating an “unwritten law,” adding that it is “freedom of expression” that is being targeted in her case. Under the German Criminal Code, condoning or approving a criminal offense “in a way that is likely to disturb public peace” is punishable by a fine or up to three years in jail.

June 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Running on empty

By Carl Friedrich | Free West Media | June 18, 2022

You have to repeat this over and over again for the simpletons in our politics – almost everyone – and for the dumb morons and notorious liars in the media: Russia has been fighting in the Russia-friendly part of Ukraine, i.e. in the Donbass, quite considerately for weeks now, because it doesn’t want to kill its own friends and destroy their land and property, which is about to be taken over.

The anti-Russian Zelensky junta in Kiev, on the other hand, for whom the Donbass is enemy territory, shoots and bombs everything without hesitation, destroying to their heart’s content, ruthlessly killing civilians there as hostages and their own compatriots, who are also “Ukrainians” in the Donbass, and then blames everything on Russia. And the western press repeats this fake news…

Thus, on June 13, the Tagesschau reported on the shelling of Donetsk, and stupidly and insidiously blamed the Russians for this fact and did not correct it. But why would the Russians shoot at themselves? Of course, the fact that Zelensky shot at a maternity clinic in Donetsk was not on state television.

Mariupol is also repeating itself. There, more than 2 000 Nazi Azov mercenaries were stuck in the bunkers of the Azov steel before they were arrested and taken away by the Russians as prisoners of war and war criminals. Some have received death sentences. And now similar numbers of extremists are sitting in the bunkers of the Azot chemical plant in the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk with hundreds of civilians they have taken hostage, hoping that they can escape under the protection of the hostages, because they are threatened with the same scenario from Russia. It is as clear as day that the Russians will let the civilian hostages go at any time.

Even with the reduction of gas delivery volumes through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline to Germany by 40 percent, only half are reported. There are delays in repair work by Siemens, Gazprom announced. A gas compressor unit was not returned in time from repairs but that is rarely reported in the German media. Instead, the accusation is that Russia is using this as an excuse to blackmail Germany. But Siemens Energy confirmed on Tuesday that it would not be able to deliver gas turbines to Gazprom. Why?

For technical reasons, this could only be done in Montreal, Siemens Energy said on Tuesday. But then the Canadian sanctions came into play.

“Against this background, we had informed the Canadian and German governments and are working on a viable solution,” a company spokeswoman told Reuters news agency. And Spiegel Online reported on Tuesday that the German government was trying to get an exemption from the sanctions from the Canadian government. It’s so obvious, but some media outlets persist with the fake news.

Following the curtailment of gas supplies by the Russian Gazprom Group, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck has once again called on people to save energy.

In a video distributed on Twitter on Wednesday evening, the Green politician thanked the population and the companies for their efforts so far. At the same time, Habeck appealed with regard to saving energy: “Now is the time to do it. Every kilowatt hour helps in this situation.”

He said the situation was serious, but it did not endanger the security of supply in Germany. Habeck warned, “We have to be vigilant. We must continue to work in a concentrated manner. Above all, we must not allow ourselves to be divided. Because that is what Putin is up to.”

But who manoeuvred Germany into this ridiculous situation in the first place? Certainly not Putin! The sanctions seem to be backfiring quite spectacularly, while Germany pretends to be surprised that Russia is reacting.

Chancellor Scholz’s visit, who is currently in Kiev chumming up with the chief cokehead together with President Macron, saw Zelenski taking advantage of the arrival of his “democracy” supporters to dissolve one of the main opposition parties on the same day.

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Putin was lucid about how the simpletons in the EU and US got themselves into this mess: “The sanctions regime was built on the fraudulent assumption that Russia is not economically sovereign. It appears that, planning their economic Blitzkrieg, they believed in their own propaganda about Russia’s backwardness.”

June 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Siemens fails to return turbines to Gazprom

Samizdat | June 15, 2022

German company Siemens has confirmed that Ukraine-related sanctions imposed on Russia have made it impossible for the equipment supplier to return gas turbines to Gazprom after they were repaired in Canada.

The Russian energy company was forced to reduce gas supplies to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline this week due to the parts shortage.

The gas turbines are currently in Montreal for an overhaul, and could not be returned to the customer due to Canadian sanctions, Siemens Energy said, as quoted by Reuters.

“Due to the sanctions imposed by Canada, it is currently impossible for Siemens Energy to deliver overhauled gas turbines to the customer,” the company said.

The firm also said it had informed the German and Canadian governments of the problem, adding that it was working on a viable solution.

On Tuesday, Russian energy major Gazprom announced a cutback of gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline after Siemens failed to return gas-pumping units to the compressor station on time. Supplies are expected to decrease to some 100 million cubic meters per day from the planned 167 million cubic meters, marking a reduction of 40%.

European prices for natural gas surged 10% on the news.

In March, Siemens announced that it would halt equipment deliveries to Russia. Last month, the German company said it would completely withdraw from the Russian market, and launched procedures to terminate its business activities in the country.

June 15, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Heavily armed police search Swiss doctor’s office after mask exemptions

Free West Media | June 12, 2022

Apparently the stance against doctors who work according to their Hippocratic oath and the medical code of ethics is being tightened internationally.

The enforcement of masks is an important goal in order to be able to continue the pandemic, as is known from internal protocols of the Israeli Ministry of Health or statements by the Austrian Director of Public Health. Masks have become a sign of submission while at the same time renouncing fundamental rights.

Even in Switzerland, which is known to be more liberal with the measures and had already lifted many random measures in mid-February, completely disproportionate action was taken against doctors. On social media, users likened the raid to how police would normally respond to a terror threat.

This is already happening in Germany, as the criminal judgment against Dr. Ronald Weikl showed. In Germany, such an act would be less surprising in view of the many house searches, even against judges who had issued “unwanted” judgements, also in connection with masks for children.

The regional court of Passau, Germany is expected to pass a verdict against the “mask doctor” Weikl for writing blank exemption certificates against the mask requirement.

“Whether it was a matter of issuing false health certificates, which is punishable under §278 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), as alleged by the prosecution, or only of medical certificates, for which §278 (StGB) does not apply at all,” noted the Children’s Health Defense Fund.

Weikl acted in the best interest of his patients, his lawyer explained and this should not have led to an indictment due to the lack of a criminal act on his part. The legal principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege applies, which means that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law – showing concern for his patients and especially children.

The law in Switzerland expressly provides for exceptions to the mask requirement. However, some authorities and the public prosecutor’s offices obviously do not care. For months there has been a veritable witch hunt against doctors who are critical of the measures.

Like Weikl, the Bern psychiatrist Dr. medical Ruke Wyler had issued mask certificates for her patients. The practice of the psychiatrist, who had only fulfilled her medical duty, was stormed in a heavy and a completely disproportionate police operation.

The scientific network Aletheia reported on the raid on the doctor’s practice. Critical doctors who question Corona measures to protect their own patients are being addressed and sanctioned, both abroad and in Switzerland.

Under the supervision of armed police officers wearing bulletproof vests, her computer hard drive was confiscated and patient files were taken away. People who wanted to support the doctor were asked to leave the building under threat of violence.

The Aletheia network said they were extremely concerned about these developments. Doctors who had issued mask certificates for the benefit of their patients did so because, after a thorough study of the data, they had come to the conclusion that wearing masks would be of no benefit, would be only harmful, first and foremost for children.

The medical certificates issued by the doctor could in no way be deemed to be incorrect since there has been no examination by the police or the public prosecutor’s office; this is a matter for medical expertise and the professional code of conduct for physicians. Medical professionals are free from directives, especially from non-physicians.

The vast majority of Corona measures are based on the narrative of the epidemiologically relevant asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which has long been refuted. This means that all non-pharmacological measures that go beyond hygiene and self-isolation for sick people (antisocial distancing, masks in public spaces, isolation, quarantine, contact tracing, school closures and curfews) are ineffective and harmful for asymptomatic people who were previously considered healthy.

June 12, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Germans warned of ‘difficult autumn’ and ‘tough winter’

“Whoever saves energy helps Germany become more independent from Russian imports and also does it for the sake of the climate”

Samizdat | June 11, 2022

Germans should brace for a difficult autumn and winter due to skyrocketing prices, as the country pushes for independence from Russian energy, the Vice Chancellor, and head of the Ministry of Economy, Robert Habeck warned on Friday.

“As for the support of the people who need it, I clearly indicated what is ahead of us and what is already partially a reality… we are facing a very difficult autumn and a very tough winter,” he said, as cited by RIA Novosti.

Habeck made the prediction as he presented a new energy saving initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). Berlin is planning to replace Russian coal and oil by the end of the year and stop importing Russian gas by 2024, and is struggling to find alternative energy sources. According to the vice chancellor, energy prices are already extremely high and “many people will get significantly higher bills than usual” in the upcoming heating season.

“For this reason alone, saving energy is urgently needed, and I know that many are already looking at where they can save something, especially when they have to watch every cent anyway,” he said.

The new initiative – ‘80 million together for energy change’ – aims to motivate people to save energy. It provides examples on its website from everyday life and recommendations for saving energy, including: regularly defrosting the freezer, raising the refrigerator temperature to 7C, using LED light bulbs in offices, ways to cut down on water consumption and heating in the bathroom and kitchen, etc.

“Whoever saves energy helps Germany become more independent from Russian imports and also does it for the sake of the climate,” Habeck said.

The tumultuous situation with energy prices around the world has hit Germany hard. The availability of Russian energy carriers on the global market was put into jeopardy following the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and the retaliatory sanctions from the West.

Energy prices propelled annual inflation in Europe’s largest economy to 7.9% in May, its highest level in nearly 50 years. Energy prices in the country rose 38.3% year-on-year last month, while food prices posted an 11.1% leap, data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) shows. As a result, nearly half of German citizens have been forced to change their lifestyle and cut back on spending, media reports, citing polls. According to a study conducted for Bild newspaper by INSA this week, every sixth German citizen does not eat regularly due to the rise in prices, and another 13% are considering the possibility of saving on food.

June 11, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

One in Six Germans Forced to Skip Meals Thanks to Food Price Crunch: Survey

Samizdat – 11.06.2022

Europeans face a perfect storm of soaring inflation, self-inflicted energy price shocks caused by sanctions on Russia, and fears of a looming recession. In Germany, the region’s traditional economic and industrial powerhouse, ordinary people have taken a hit to their wallets, while businesses have warned of large-scale losses and layoffs.

Nearly one in six Germans (16 percent) have been forced to go without regular meals to make ends meet, and another 13 percent may face a similar situation if food prices continue to rise, a new survey by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for Germany’s Bild newspaper has found.

According to the survey, people from low-income households whose income after taxes is less than 1,000 euros per month have been the most heavily affected, with 32 percent of respondents forced to skip meals regularly.

42 percent of those polled also indicated that they are forced to cook more sparingly due to inflation, leaving out certain ingredients in meals, or dessert. Another 41 percent said they rely on supermarket special offers and discounts to stretch their euros as far as possible.

INSA’s study was conducted on 7 June, with a representative sample of 1,002 people queried.

Adolf Bauer, president of the German Association for Social Affairs, told Bild he was “greatly worried” by the survey’s results, saying it was a “clear sign that the measures taken by the federal government to date are not sufficient.” Bauer had previously warned Berlin not to introduce an energy embargo on Russia, saying it would add to suffering among ordinary people caused by out of control energy, food and rent prices.

Verena Bentele, president of the Social Association of Germany, a major Berlin-headquartered socio-political advocacy organization, echoed Bauer’s concerns, saying the figures show that people are “suffering greatly from the increased prices.”

“Members tell us they can only afford pasta and toast. We urgently need the VAT on fresh foods to be abolished and financial relief for those who have so far received nothing from the government’s energy price flat-rate,” Bentele urged.

Germans and other Europeans have faced out of control inflationary and price pressures in recent months, with Handelsblatt reporting double-digit growth on some food items in April. Last month, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reported that EU sanctions on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus would result in losses of up to 3 million tonnes of harvest in the current year. Europe relied on the two countries for some 4.6 million tonnes of its 13 million tonnes-worth of fertilizer consumption last year, while local production efforts have been hampered by the large amount of energy required to produce them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has lamented at the European Union’s decision to commit “economic suicide” by depriving itself of cheap and reliable Russian energy supplies, and expressed sympathy for ordinary Europeans and Americans suffering as a result of their leaders’ decision-making. “The truth is that the current problems that millions of people in the West face are the result of many actions by the ruling elites of their states, their mistakes, myopia and ambitions. These elites are not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens. They are obsessed with their own selfish interests and surplus profits,” he suggested at a briefing in March.

June 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

US policies led to ‘new G8’ – Moscow

Samizdat | June 11, 2022

The United States “with its own hands” pushed the countries, which are not participating in “sanctions wars,” to form a “new Big Eight” group with Russia, the Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Saturday.

Following the launch of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine in late February, the US, EU, UK and many other countries imposed hard-hitting restrictions on Moscow, making Russia the most sanctioned country in the world.

In a Telegram post, Volodin included a table with IMF data on GDP based on purchasing power parity of countries he calls the “new G8” and of countries forming the current G7 (after Russia’s participation in the bloc was suspended over Crimea’s vote to join the country in 2014, the G8 effectively turned into the G7).

“The group of eight countries not participating in the sanctions wars – China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Turkey – in terms of GDP at PPP is 24.4% ahead of the old group,” Volodin wrote.

In his opinion, the economies of the G7 members – the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – continue “to crack under the weight of sanctions imposed against Russia.”

“The rupture of existing economic relations by Washington and its allies has led to the formation of new points of growth in the world,” Volodin claimed.

While having serious economic difficulties, the US, according to the Duma speaker, continues “doing everything to solve their problems at the expense of others.” Creating tensions will “inevitably” lead the US to lose its world domination, Volodin stressed.

“The United States created the conditions with its own hands for countries wishing to build an equal dialogue and mutually beneficial relations to actually form a ‘new Big Eight’ together with Russia,” he said.

Meanwhile, on Friday, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Eric Woodhouse said that Washington and its allies had realized that they would get “spillovers” of anti-Russia sanctions into their own economies. Their determination in imposing sanctions on Moscow, he claimed, has demonstrated a willingness to “accept those costs.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted on the same day that the anti-Russia sanctions have made a “huge difference to food and energy prices,” amid record-setting inflation. The remarks followed the statement by the Russian President Vladimir Putin who said that “many years of mistakes made by Western nations” in their economic and sanctions policies have caused “a global wave of inflation, disruption of established logistical and manufacturing chains, a surge in poverty and a deficit of food.”

June 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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